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Las Vegas Oct 2017 mass shooting

More than 20 people were killed and 100 injured when what appears to be a lone gunman opened fire from a perch high up in the the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas Sunday night, police said.

The "nonstop gunfire," according to one witness, sent bystanders outside the resort on the Vegas strip ducking for cover and fleeing for their lives. Tourists hid in their hotel rooms and flights headed into the McCarran International Airport were held elsewhere.

Bystanders sprang into action, caring for the wounded and at least one described someone dying in their arms.

Videos filmed by onlookers gave a window into the chaos that ensued, with some thinking that fireworks were going off. The final night of the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival was taking place across the street from Mandalay Bay when the shooting took place and concertgoers were caught off-guard.

In the wake of the shooting, the Las Vegas Police Department said the suspected gunman, was believed to be a local, was on 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay hotel. Police responded to the scene, engaged him and he is now dead. Officials said they did not believe there were any more shooters.

Authorities were looking for a companion of the shooter, Marilou Danley, as well as two vehicles, a Hyundai Tucson and Chrysler Pacifica, both with Nevada plates. At least two police officers were hospitalised.

"We were just at the concert there, and Jason Aldean was playing," one of the concertgoers, named Mike Cronk, 48, a retired teacher, told ABC News. "Kinda sounded like some fireworks going off. I think there was the first kinda volley, and then all of the sudden second volley. My buddy's like 'I just got hit, ya know.' He got hit three times. Then people started diving for the ground. And it just continued."

"It was pretty much chaotic," Cronk continued. "Lots of people got hit. ...It took a while to get him out. We had to get him over the fence and hiding under the stage for a while, ya know, to be safe. And finally we had to move him because he had three chest wounds."

Cronk said his group were finally able to track down an ambulance "and basically the one guy ended up dying in my arms because he was bleeding," he said. "And my buddy got in there. We got three more people in the ambulance. ... But I just got a message from my buddy -- and he's going to be okay."

As bursts of gunfire crackled in the air, people outside of the casino ducked and screamed, according to video filmed by witnesses.

"We're going to get trampled if we don't go," a bystander could be heard saying in a dramatic video of the incident. Confusion appeared to abound as those outside fled the scene with another person saying, "it's fireworks."

Michelle Leonard, who was located in a booth near the main entrance of the arena, said the shooting just “kept going nonstop.”

Leonard said “mass confusion” unfolded as people tried to flee the scene. She said the shooting seemed like it went on for more than a minute.

“I had no idea of where it was coming from or where to run to," Leonard said.

She said she injured her leg as she tried to escape.

Another witness, Jake Freeman, said he was standing on the rooftop of a nearby hotel when the shooting broke out.

“I had a bird’s-eye view” of the shooting, Freeman said in a phone interview with ABC News. He said he saw "crowds of people running” as people “dropped to the ground.”

To me, the audio sounds more like slide fire or bump fire than the kind of consistency I'd expect from full auto.

The video was taken - and the victims situated - 400m slant distance from the shooter. In the video you here both the shots in the background and some more scattered noiseover, possibly including ricochet. The shots are very consistent in relatively long bursts.

To me, the audio sounds more like slide fire or bump fire than the kind of consistency I'd expect from full auto.

Latest numbers are 58+ dead and 515 hospitalized.

I agree the most likely explanation is bumpfire.

As far as I know this is the single biggest death of Americans from a single gun position in history. This guy did more damage than any individually sighted MG42 on Omaha Beach. He rivals the the best of the Kaiser's maxim gunners on the Somme. He had a perfect elevated enfilade position with good lighting of the kill box and tightly massed victims.

As far as I know this is the single biggest death of Americans from a single gun position in history. This guy did more damage than any individually sighted MG42 on Omaha Beach. He rivals the the best of the Kaiser's maxim gunners on the Somme. He had a perfect elevated enfilade position with good lighting of the kill box and tightly massed victims.

Yes, its pretty damn hard to shoot people who are running. Easier if they are massed and cannot easily run away

Thinking back to Bombay in 2008, 10 shooters with assault rifles making their way across the city only managed 168, a quarter the hit rate

Earlier we got hit with high explosive bombs, three digits, then the high explosive became hard to find. So they used more bombs but lower in intensity. The numbers fell, mid two digits and further falling couldn't go higher with subsequent attacks. As the attacks increased the ring became more vulnerable and eventually ceased to exist

That's the new way. This shooter was old school i doubt his record will be beaten for a long time. I didn't know automatic weapons are unaffordable in the US, that point doesn't come across in the usual anti-gun rhetoric i read

If every person at that concert exercised his/her 2nd Amendment "right" to be armed to the teeth in a public place, how many more people would have died?

I don't think it would have made any difference, the people at the concert probably had no idea where the shooter was until it was over. Most of the reports I heard indicated that people assumed the sound was fireworks until they actually saw people around them bleeding.

I don't think it would have made any difference, the people at the concert probably had no idea where the shooter was until it was over. Most of the reports I heard indicated that people assumed the sound was fireworks until they actually saw people around them bleeding.

Reports seem to indicate ONE bump fire stock, but multiple other guns that may have been modified for full auto.

Bumpfiring has bad consequences for accuracy and I'd imagine would be physically very tiring. It would be difficult to maintain long sustained automatic fire bursts on a target area 500 yards away, even with the help of tripods. He kept firing for over 20 min, at one point firing 280 rounds at 90 rounds/s.

IMO most likely setup is multiple full auto weapons on stands, with the guy alternating between the rifles to allow them to cool between firing.

Edit: no I could be wrong. The actual reported firing rate was 280 rounds over 30 seconds, which would make for 9 rounds per second, which is doable with bump fire.